Hard Rain: Thunderous Gods
by BlackRaptor93
Summary: Can a pair of Special Infected brave the storm to get their prize? Slight Hunter x Witch
1. Chapter 1

((Note: Infected speak is in Italics))

The rain pounded the world like an angry god, never ending and ferocious.

It was rare it rained this hard, and even the Infected that inhabited the small town (or most) knew to take cover and wait it out. The hunter that was currently curled up in the bathtub was no exception.

The tub was rather small, the previous occupants having been an elderly pair, and the infected was forced to curl up in foetal position just to fit. His eyes where closed tightly, screwed up as if to will the storm away with sheer force. In truth, the loud noise and flashes frightened him more than anything else.

It had been mind numbing terror that had spurred the hunter to throw himself time and time against the modest two storey house like so many others on this street, against the locked door until his clothes where cut and shredded, until the lock gave and he was sent spilling into the darkened front passage like a rag.

The bottom floor was flooded from the rainwater that had seeped under the door, so instead the special infected had scampered upstairs and curled up in the modest bathroom where there where no windows and no way for him to see the flashing demons outside. He felt safe, the basic part of his mind at ease.

Gradually, the gentle patter of rain on the roof overloaded the loud clashes and bangs of the monsters, and the hunter fell asleep, his mind carrying him far away from the mortal world…

***

A soft nudge slowly brought the hunter back to reality, as much as he didn't want to. His dream was so pleasant, feeling his claws sinking into a human's flesh, the blood slick and warm, the screams the sweetest music…

_"CAJUN!"  
_  
The hunter, hearing his name echo through his mind sat up with a screech, feeling his forehead connect with something else hard. Cajun yelped and clutched his painful skull with his claws as his eyes opened, seeing the infected he had just assaulted slumped against the wall like a doll, rubbing his own head

_"Well shit, Cajun…"_ The infected opposite him, a Smoker and one of his only companions in this new world, spoke. Apparently, unlike many of the infected, the smokers where still mutating, as was evidenced by the large tumour that consumed most of his right neck, and several tentacle growths poked out at odd angles from the mass, and one long tongue hung from his mouth like a bow tie.

Infected had their own language, of course, but to humans it sounded like grunts and growls. To other infected they picked words out of it, meaning they pretty much had privacy on their side when it came to planning.

Cajun smiled sheepishly with exposed fangs at the glowering smoker, who he noted was covered in blood, taking in his features once again. His eyes where a soft black, a far stretch from Cajun's own, which where pure red, and a mop of untidy blonde hair hung slightly above his eyes and he was dressed in a long brown coat and a pair of blue jeans.

_"You been in a fight again, Gary?"_ Cajun snorted, skirting the apology while gesturing to the blood as he lounged back in the bath, fighting off the urge to cough from the constant green smoke the infected constantly exude was sickening with the combination of the close quarters and Cajun's enhanced senses.

The smoker grunted softly, rolling his eyes  
_"No… well, yeah, but that's beside the point. The storm's still raging and it makes the commons uppity… and generally more messed up than usual."_ He muttered softly, eyes glinting with hidden malice.

_"What is it?"_ Cajun asked, getting a feeling from Gary's looks. Raising his eyebrow softly, arms folding softly, careful not to rip his sleeves with his claws, he seemed to utterly forget the fact he was in a bath.

_"Well…"_ He grinned, his voice slightly darker that usual. If Cajun wasn't used to him, he would have found that creepy. Instead, it simply made him more curious.

"_Prey."_ Gary said simply and darkly, his grin widening as Cajun's eyes widened in response, his tongue lolling from his mouth almost comically.

_"Where?"_ He replied, his own voice dark, thick with pure undiluted lust to feed on human flesh – the same treat he had not experienced since this town fell not two weeks before.

The smoker laughed darkly as the hunter snarled, impatient.

"_Just outside of town, the old sugar mill."_ Gary whispered, his long tongue gently curling and uncurling.

_"Does anyone else know?"_ He rumbled, clenching and unclenching

_"Not yet, but I have no doubt it won't go unnoticed for long." _The smoker shrugged, coughing hoarsely again.

Immediately Cajun leapt from the bathroom and – quite foolishly – leapt headfirst out into the storm, the glass window shattering from the impact. The split second of mind numbing fear he experienced was overwhelmed by the savage need to feed. He landed on all fours in the floodwaters below, growling furiously as he took a moment to glance at his reflection.

His face was scrunched up, lips curled back over sharp fangs. His long brown hair was restrained under his black hood, the sleeves gone, torn away to relieve himself from the heat, as where the bottoms of the trousers, but he still wore a pair of soaked trainers. Not as easy to grip on a surface as bare feet would be, but that didn't matter right now.

Satisfied, Cajun leapt away with a screech, the storm swallowing him up as he started on the journey through town.

Gary watched him go, grinning madly past his swollen tongue before he loped downstairs and out the door, setting off after his companion, he too swallowed by the thundering gods.


	2. Eye of the Storm

After what seemed like several hours, Cajun had to stop. He had been leaping through the town, across rooftops and through buildings, and his body couldn't psychically carry on, much to the Infected's annoyance. The survivors could be gone – or worse, dead – by the time he reached the mill.

The storm hadn't let up much since he started his trek, and his clothes where clinging to him, his hair matted to his forehead like a badly fitting hat. His hood had done some good keeping the rain off his face, but eventually it had soaked through.

The trip through town had been relatively uneventful apart from the raging water and the constant flashed and rumbles of the storm. He had cut his way through a few commons but that did little to ease his growing annoyance, or the savage need clawing at his brain.

The hunter scaled a drainpipe and leapt into the upstairs window of a modest house on the outskirts of town, a soft growl on his lips. The urge to kill was a solid knot in his stomach, a raging inferno that wouldn't be extinguished until he had a human beneath him, claws in its stomach. Shrugging it off for a moment he shook himself like a dog, water spraying off his clothes like a fountain he cocked his head, drawing a breath. His enhanced sense of smell picked out another infected in the building – one of his own kind.

Usually this wouldn't prompt a reaction from Cajun – why waste his time? But something told him this was different. Instinct made him slowly crawl out of the room and along a corridor flanked by a banister, claws barely clicking on the wooden floor, lips curled back over fangs that thirsted for blood.

He gently peered around an open doorway, his blood red eyes picking out everything, including the curled up form of an Infected that lay huddled in the top right corner, almost as if it was trying not to be noticed. The flashes of lighting illuminated what his nose confirmed to be another hunter, and a young one at that.

Something inside him, the same thing that had brought him into this room, told him to kill. He needed the feel of flesh on his claws to tide him over to the mill, or he would go insane with hunger. Now, infected weren't the tastiest meal, not the most satisfying hunt, and this hunter was probably cold, tired and scared…but it was better than nothing, and Cajun had nothing against genocide.

In that split second, he made his choice. His legs uncurled and a screech erupted from his throat, claws outstretched. The hunter in the corner jerked awake with a cry, turning to face the flying figure that must have seemed like the devil himself, before Cajun hit the other hunter like a freight train, slamming him hard into the corner.

Instinct took over as he landed on top of the other infected and his claws tore into his prey's shirt, into flesh, gouging out deep rivulets and splashing blood across both of the fighting infected.

Now the other hunter struck back, but in panic. His (Cajun, even in his frenzy could see the masculine features, and this one wore no hood) claws struck Cajun's face in a glancing blow that knocked him sideways, and the younger hunter used this to push Cajun off and sprinted for the open door on all fours…

Cajun screeched, about the leap after him when a savage hack signalled the arrival of Gary. From the window to the immediate right of the fleeing infected a long tongue lanced across the room and wrapped around the creature's right arm. Gary pulled, hard.

The click and accompanying crack signalled that the younger hunter was sent sprawling onto the floor, headfirst. The tongue uncurled and Gary stepped through the window like a rain soaked angel of death, his own eyes alight now.

The unfortunate victim only had time to roll over, whimpering in pain before both Gary and Cajun pounced. Cajun's claws found the stomach and with a savage swipe left intestines spilling out, a sickening scream from the pinned hunter over riding the raging storm outside. Blood boiled forth from its mouth and Cajun dug both hands deep into the open stomach, a savage hungry snarl erupting from his lips.

But this only drove the pair of lusting infected into further acts of aggression. Gary crossed the room in three strides, coughing and hacking as he reached down with two tumour covered hands and gripped the squirming hunters arm, and twisted left and right, then finally away. On the first twist, tendons and muscles snapped and the arm was pulled from its socket. The second signalled the shoulder blade being wrenched out of position.

The third separated the arm from the body at the shoulder in an explosion of blood that pumped out of the ruined socket like a tide. Now the Hunter could no longer cry out, only choke on blood, eyes rolling back in their sockets and Cajun struggled to stay atop the body that was quickly slipping into convulsions. No human could survive that, but infected where tougher – and in this case, the dying hunter wished he was dead.

Gary's tongue now found its throat and squeezed. With a final snap, the prey fell limp and Cajun removed his gore stained hands, slumping over, exhausted. The smoker lounged down beside him, his own breathing erratic as he tossed the severed arm out into the storm.

After a long while, Cajun sat up, a grin on his face.  
"_That felt good." _He murmured to his companion, eyes flickering to him the Smoker nodded softly, breathing hard

_"Typical." _Garry muttered _"I spend the day chasing your ass half way across town only to find you ripping something to bits." _

Cajun barked a laugh, licking his claws of the blood.

"_We both needed that, and you can't deny it. We'd have snapped LONG before we ever got to the humans."_

The hunter took a moment to allow his eyes to linger over the Smoker's arms. Though covered in boils, he knew that it took more power than he had to rip an arm clean away from the socket. Gary was technically the muscle of the group, though Cajun would never admit that.

Suddenly, Gary bolted upright, stiff as a board. His fingers (Gary had no claws, not many smokers did) dug into the wood.

_"Crying one…" _He murmured, as Cajun realised he could hear sobbing… and it came from Downstairs. One of the crying infected, the one that even a behemoth stayed away from, had wandered into the house – probably to escape the storm. Her cries where deafening to both of the quivering infected – if she found them, Gary had no doubt she'd get agitated by the kill, the blood – hell, even the fact there two others of her kind here – and rip them both apart.

_"Cajun… she's coming up the stairs, we need to go…"_ The smoker coughed, but Cajun, his natural curiosity sparked, had already crept onto the landing. For the first time, Gary's breath caught in his throat, and the spores he naturally produced seemed to freeze as he watched his best friend – his only friend – risking his life to see what would most probably become the death of them.

Cajun gently stepped around the banister end, the sobbing so loud it was right on top of him… when it suddenly stopped, and the hunter found himself slammed HARD against the wall behind him. He almost screeched, but kept himself quiet as the growling female infected peered into his face with glowing eyes into his shaking face – he was crying, he realised.

He didn't want to die – but if he did, it would be his own fault. In the brief seconds he had left of life, he studied his killer. She had long blonde hair that had been reduced to white, her skin also pasty and pale. Her eyes shone a deep yellow and her claws – oh they put Cajun's to shame by a mile – where pinning him to the wall by his hoodie. She wore next to nothing, only a thin rain slick shirt that exposed more than he wanted to see, and a pair of small white shorts that matched her skin.

Cajun let out a soft whine as she raised one claw – he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything! She raised it, and swung it down, hearing Gary scream his name, hearing the female snarling…

But no blow came. He cautiously opened one eye to see the infected, his supposed killer, was purring, eyes widening even more as she nuzzled him!

_"What's your name?"_ He heard someone asked and it took him a few dumb seconds to realise it was the sobbing infected that was currently pinning him to the wall, eyes peering in his expectantly.

_"C…Cajun…" _He mumbled softly as she withdrew her claws and let him slide down the wall, still shivering. Gary was in the door way, his tongue slack, his eyes wider than Cajun's – he'd NEVER seen a sobbing one get angry and not kill what was responsible, let alone stop crying!

She let out a soft giggled, and sat on Cajun's lap, claws gently on his chest, making his heart skip a beat and oh she was sitting in the worst spot imaginable! He let out a soft moan as she gently nuzzled his neck.

"_Mine's Amber…"_

---  
AN! // Thank you to my reviewers! I hope you enjoyed this chapter; it took me a while to write… please, comment and review! Also… What's with the Witch? Will Cajun and Gary make it out alive? Find out next time!


	3. Bitter Past

((Warning! This chapter contains SLIGHT 'romance' (You know what I mean). I don't feel the need to up this to M rating, but I am giving you warning!))

Cajun had settled down slightly, the threat to his life apparently lessened. Of course, it wasn't every day you had a Crying One sitting on you, never mind living long enough for her to tell you her name. His red eyes where still locked on her, trying not to focus on the new urges that rose up inside him like a creeping itch, slipping past his natural barriers and logic. Certainly, the fact she was sitting on his lap and the close proximity made it almost unbearable. His clawed hands twitched by his sides.

Meanwhile, Gary had relaxed slightly, leaning against the doorframe, black eyes studying both his friend and the Crying Infected.

To him, she certainly looked unstable – she was just as likely to free a drowning cat as she was to hold it under, to mourn its passing as to grin when its life faded. But oddly, in some part of him it felt like he knew her, and that unsettled the smoker greatly. His eyebrows furrowed, his tongue gently curling. What's worse was the new craving that had touched some part of his infected mind, and he could see from Cajun's gaze that it was in him too.

Why she had chosen the Hunter and not him, why she had not killed them both, was both baffling and blatantly clear to the Infected. He felt twin pricks of tears form in the corner of his eyes.

Cajun let out a soft whimper, not speaking as he slowly but surely raised one clawed hand. Amber tracked this hand, her smile widening as it gently brushed her cheek, like a lover would. She could not remember much of her past life, but she knew she was young, but not a child – she had been in relationships before.  
And that filled her with more joy that could be imagined, made her feel wanted… that was what she had been looking for, the very thing she had lacked and made her cry like the world was ending, filled her with anger when a human came to close, fooling her into thinking it would comfort her only to raise a weapon or run.

In the hunter she had found what she had been looking for, and she would give it her all. She would not waste this chance.

_"Cajun…" _Amber purred, the subtle throaty tone making every hair on the hunters neck stand on end, eliciting a soft, primal growl from him. His eyes roamed her body now, in no pattern in the hungry blood red eyes, but his face registered what his body was feeling, and he couldn't resist.

He didn't want to.

_"Amber…" _He whimpered back – it felt like he had known her for longer than a few minutes, the human side temporarily forced out of his mind by the overwhelming new need. A female was close, and she was in heat. What more could be said? Being careful not to scratch her (she was content for the moment, but his gaze flickered to the giant knife like claws that lay on his chest and knew he would be minus a heart or a head if he upset her), he gently, ever so gently, ran them up her cold stomach and under her thin top, gently rubbing her breasts, not too hard as to cause pain but not too light to be a feather. He gave a soft purr at the feeling of warm, excited flesh beneath his palms, resisting the urge to dig in with his claws.

Amber moaned softly, the pleasure and warmth spreading out from her bust, running through her veins like fire. Her gaze flickered to where the Smoker had stood, seeing he was gone from the doorway, but the thin trail of spores told her he was still inside the room. Her gaze turned back to the hunter, whose eyes had narrowed, lips curled back over teeth, but not in hunger. Oh no, he wanted her SO badly. And who was she to deny him?

Her claw ran over the bulge that had formed in his trousers, a whimper interrupting the Hunters growls. She ran a claw over the material and severed it, exposing what she wanted. Now, Cajun was whining, back arched.

_"Please… please…" _He was whimpering over and over, his breathing heavy. Amber gave a savage grin, and just as deftly as she had cut his trousers she cut her own shorts, the thin material parting under the edge as she gently braced her hands on the wall above beside the hunter, and gently raised herself above him.

With a thrust, the pair of infected faded away from the mortal world.

Gary was ready to kill himself. He was sat in the corner of the room, eyes clamped shut and hands over his ears. He couldn't bare the sound of what was happening in the corridor. Every instinct inside of him screamed it should have been him, not Cajun. His anger wasn't so much directed at Cajun as it was the Crying one for causing this response. He snarled, standing up he looked out into the storm, trembling. One rather muscled arm clenched the window frame hard enough to crack the wood, a low hiss bubbling from Gary's mouth like the spores from his body.

The smoker's eyes flickered along the street and knew how easy it would be to leave. He certainly felt that way inclined, and he also knew he could kill Cajun. Not that he felt like giving the hunter a quick death for what he was doing a few feet away; no, he felt like slowly strangling the life out of him. He knew it was wrong for him to feel this way towards the hunter – after all, he didn't have much CHOICE in resisting the female, did he?

What's worse was that the Crying One reminded Gary of his life before this new life. Faintly, like ripples in a pond but the hurt, the loss and the betrayal where all very real…

He stood like this for a while, until he heard a familiar voice and the creaking of floorboards behind him.

_"Gary?" _He heard a voice from behind him, but he didn't turn around. For the longest time he stood still, utterly silent.

"_What?" _The smoker asked finally, his voice betraying more emotion that he would have liked.

_"Are… you okay?" _He heard the Hunter ask, feeling a hand fall on his shoulder he whipped round and lashed out with a fist, sending the screeching hunter sprawling the floor, blood trickling from his mouth. Cajun lay there, stunned for a few seconds before he snarled dangerously.

_"What the HELL Gary?!" _Cajun snarled, propping himself up he wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, lips curled back over his teeth.

Gary glared at him, chest rising and falling._  
"You had me SIT here while you where out there mating! You didn't care how I felt about it, did you? All you cared about was YOU!" _He snarled, utter venom in his voice.

The snarl died in Cajun's throat as he slowly regained his feet. He couldn't meet Gary's gaze, eyes roaming the floor.  
_"Gary… I didn't mean to… upset you. What happened… it was in the moment…" _He murmured, claws digging into his palms.

The smoker simply grunted, eyes narrowing  
_"Everything is with you, Cajun. You're a hunter, right? You don't look before you leap."_

For once, Cajun didn't know what to say. His instinct told him to fight, to kill Gary for what he had said and done, but his rational mind felt guilt for his betrayal, no matter how good it was at the time. The pair stood for a while in silence, before Cajun sighed  
_"Listen… I'm sorry for hurting you, okay? I promise… in the future, I'll think." _

Gary shrugged, his tongue slack as he coughed violently.  
_"Whatever. We'd better move if we want to get to the mill before sundown." _The smoker muttered as he turned and dropped into the storm. Cajun paused for a moment, knowing he'd HAVE to make it up to Gary somehow.

As Cajun leapt from the window that Gary had dropped from, he caught a glimpse of Amber sitting on the doorstep, sobbing again. Cajun whimpered in his head, vowing to find her again on the way back. The smoker and the hunter then moved together in utter silence down the street (apart from the hacking Gary produced once in a while) through the massing hordes of commons that staggered in the water, gazing up at the shattered sky or pummelling each other to relieve the hate they felt.

Gary could have easily joined them.

AN: Thankyou to my reviewers! I'm sorry i haven't had chance to P.M you, but know your constant critisism inspires me to write more! So! Cajun has a love interest (in a sence?) And Gary isn't best pleased! What has the Witch Brought up from his past that made him so angry?! Find out next time! :D


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